The expression, a piece of cake, meaning anything easy to handle, originated in the Royal Air Force about 1938. We like an entertaining explanation of the expression’s origin sent in by Sidney Allinson of Scarborough, Ont.

It seems that an instructor at a fighter training unit was demonstrating, on the ground, the correct method of releasing a 500-pound bomb from a Spitfire, when he inadvertently pressed the button and was blown, with several bystanders, to smithereens. The instructor’s name was said to be Sqdn. Ldr. Cake and his last words were reported as: “It is really quite simple, but you chaps had better watch carefully because I’m not going to show you again.” Thus any simple operation that went according to plan became known as “a piece of cake.”

We’re open to other equally unauthentic explanations.